Tales of toddlers who refuse to eat anything but noodles abound in parenting circles.

For some children, the problem goes beyond being just picky eaters, prone to reject foods they once seemed to love. Some kids are also neophobic, which means they fear new food.

But for parents who worry that their children will never ingest anything but chocolate milk, Gummi vitamins and the occasional grape, a new study offers some relief. Researchers examined the eating habits of 5,390 pairs of twins between 8 and 11 years old and found that children’s aversions to trying new foods are mostly inherited.

The message to parents: It’s not your cooking, it’s your genes.

The study, led by Dr. Lucy Cooke of the department of epidemiology and public health at University College London, was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in August. Cooke and others in the field believe it is the first to use a standard scale to investigate the contribution of genetics and environment to childhood neophobia.

According to the report, 78 percent is genetic and the other 22 percent environmental…

“The way I comfort myself is the way any quasi-sane parent comforts himself,” Garvey said. “It’s like potty training. Eventually, they’re going to graduate from diapers. In the end, he’ll eat something green.” …

Most children eat a wide variety of foods until they are around 2, when they suddenly stop. The phase can last until the child is 4 or 5. It’s an evolutionary response, researchers believe. Toddlers’ taste buds shut down at about the time they start walking, giving them more control over what they eat. “If we just went running out of the cave as little cave babies and stuck anything in our mouths, that would have been potentially very dangerous,” Cooke said.

A natural skepticism of new foods is a healthy part of a child’s development, said Ellyn Satter, a child nutrition expert whose books, including Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense, have developed a cult following among parents of picky eaters.

Each child has a unique set of likes and dislikes that Satter believes are genetically determined. The only way children discover what they are is by putting food in their mouths and taking it out over and over again, she said…

Source: News & Observer, NC
http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/739371.html